Keeping Up Appearances
by Diresquirrel
Summary: Keeping Up Appearances, or Harry Potter's Wife. Ginny looks back at her life. Darkish, non-violent one shot.


**SpaceMary**: write another HP fic.  
**DireSquirrel**: I've written plenty lately, why?  
**SpaceMary**: u don't use the epilogue  
**DireSquirrel**: that's because I consider it to be a travesty against literature  
**SpaceMary**: but its cannon  
**DireSquirrel**: it's crap put forth for regurgitation of "crapily ever after" fairy tales and implied predestination of relationships that somehow work out perfectly from childhood based on nothing  
**DireSquirrel**: Happily ever after doesn't exist.

* * *

At this point SpaceMary made some choice statements about my response that don't need to be repeated in any way shape or form. We also had an in-depth discussion about Ron's actions and attitude as a form of abuse. That we agreed on.

Eventually, she did prompt me to write another story with a standard HP pairing and following closely to cannon. This is what she got. Not a happy story, just saying, and it deals with some things at might make people upset, but I think it fits well into the realm of possibility for the Wizarding World.

I don't normally bash characters, but this is how the story worked. This is also probably the only time I've ever used "Love Potions" as an excuse or prompting in a story.

Also, there is no ownership intended of any of these characters. The Epilogue can be blamed on JKR because she owns them all. This was originally posted to Twisting the Hellmouth, but I'm finally getting it posted here.

Thanks GreyWizard for all the editing and reading.

* * *

My name is Genevra Molly Potter.

I used to be known as Ginny Weasley. Now I'm known as Harry Potter's Wife.

I have red hair, pale skin and three children. I am 26 years old.

I am a lesbian.

I keep up appearances.

* * *

When I was five, my mother was concerned with my appreciation of my brothers' quidditch gear. I used to pretend I was the Keeper and fly for Gryffindor or the Harpies. Mother did not approve, so Daddy put a notice-me-not spell on my toy broom to pacify her.

After I couldn't find it for a year, Mother thought I had "grown out of the phase" and bought me tea sets, a Boy-Who-Lived doll and a set of books. She told me he was such a nice boy, even if she had neither met nor seen him before. I still liked wearing dresses and being pretty just like any other girl, but that wasn't enough for Mother. She already had my life planned out for me.

* * *

When I was six, I stole my brother Bill's wand and learned how to cancel Charms. I started flying again and left my Boy-Who-Lived doll alone. I flew over to a friend's house often when Mother couldn't see me. My friend Luna had big blue eyes and pale blonde hair. She was beautiful.

One day, when I was seven, Mother caught me holding hands with Luna. The next day, Mother cast a Luna Repelling charm on me and put up wards. I didn't see Luna again until we both went to Hogwarts. When I asked why I couldn't see my girlfriend Luna, Mother said I shouldn't associate with "those people."

I was supposed to keep up appearances.

* * *

When I was eight, Charlie gave me a Hollyhead Harpies poster and had it signed by the entire team. One week later, it was "damaged" in an "accident." Mother told me she was very sorry. Father looked at me sadly.

* * *

When I was eleven, I went to Hogwarts and fell in love. She was beautiful, and smart and pretty and brilliant. Her name was Hermione Granger, but she didn't even know I existed. I told my friend about this, but Tom told me that I was better than her because she was a mudblood and I was a pureblooded witch. My "friend" Tom was Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known to the world as Voldemort.

When I looked at her, my heart fluttered, despite what Tom told me. I knew I was in love with her.

But she wasn't in love with me. She only had eyes for Harry Potter. I was jealous, but every time I went to confront him, my courage failed me and I ran away.

After all, I owed him a life debt after he saved me from Tom and the Basilisk.

* * *

When I was twelve, my brothers "rescued" Harry Potter from his relatives. Mother insisted that he wash and comb and she treated him like a son.

She also kept every hair that came off in the shower or in the comb. It wasn't hard to tell his from anyone else in the house. Only the Boy-Who-Lived had black hair in the Burrow.

I wrote about Hermione a lot, that first term. Mother started sending "care packages" with some minor love potions added into the mix. That was when I "stopped" loving Hermione Granger. I was forcibly infatuated with the Boy-Who-Lived, even if I only liked Harry Potter as a friend.

I was keeping up appearances.

* * *

When I was thirteen, I "dated" boys for the first time. I went to the Yule Ball with Neville Longbottom because he asked me and was afraid that he would be alone. I went with him because it is never good to be alone in a crowd of people. I knew that all too well.

Hermione went with Viktor Krum. My brother Ron was jealous of them. To this day, I'm not sure if he was jealous of her or him. I knew that Hermione really wanted to go with Harry Potter, but he was such a boy and didn't ask. At least he was better to his date than my brother.

* * *

When I was fourteen, my mother read my diary. I wrote Hermione's name with a heart dotting the "I" and underlined her name. Mother started sending "care packages" again. This time, she sent some to Harry as well, but Ron ate them. Nothing turns me off more than my brother checking out my arse or complimenting me on my "assets" to other boys.

That was an awkward few weeks.

I was allowed to play Quidditch because Mother wasn't around to object. I was pretty good, if I do say so myself.

I met up with Luna for the first time in years. Even if we had seen each other in school, we hadn't talked. The fire between us was gone. The Luna I adored as a child had been broken by her mother's death. I kept wondering if things would have been different, if I had been there for her. I kept wondering if there could have been an "us."

Harry Potter briefly dated Cho Chang, but broke it off as soon as Hermione needed anything. The facts of the matter weren't that hard to see.

In the Ministry at the end of the year, Harry Potter went berserk when Hermione was cursed. He barely said a word to me, before or after.

I knew the truth. Harry Potter and I were in love with the same woman.

* * *

When I was fifteen, Mother made special cakes for me dosed with potion. Harry didn't look my way. Hermione didn't look my way so I "dated" again. I went with boys on Hogsmeade trips and walks around the castle. I kissed a few. There was no fire. There was no passion. So I tried other boys and got the same result. Two weeks before the end of the second term, I dated Harry Potter with both of us eating Mother's cakes. We stopped eating them after Dumbledore died.

He broke it off and I felt relief. It was like I could finally breathe after being trapped under ice in the darkest winter night.

Then I saw Hermione leaning on my brother's shoulder at the funeral. I started to wonder if Hermione was getting "care packages" from Mother. It would explain her jealousy for the year, especially since Ron and Hermione had only fought before. Personally, I would have hexed him for the things he did to her over the years.

I sometimes wish I had.

* * *

When I was sixteen, Hermione, Ron and Harry went off to save the world like Heroes do. At Bill and Fleur's wedding, Harry didn't even look at me. I felt the same relief that I did when he broke up with me.

But then I saw him holding Hermione's hand.

He was holding her hand.

He was holding _her_ hand.

And she was holding _his_ hand.

The three of them left while I went to Hogwarts for my Sixth year. I helped Neville fight a guerrilla war from inside the castle school. Mother wrote me a letter than said Ron had come home safe and was hungry. That was not news.

Harry and Hermione were living in a tent.

Alone.

They were in love. They were _alone_ in a tent during wartime.

At least they couldn't get "care packages" from Mother.

* * *

After they saved the Wizarding World, the "care packages" returned.

Less than a year later, I was married to Harry Potter and pregnant and depressed.

Hermione was married to Ron. She was bitter and miserable and pregnant with Harry's child from the Forest of Dean. Hermione said Rose was "early."

Ron was dull and oblivious. Not that it was any sort of revelation.

I considered killing myself when the potion effects wore off. Instead, I talked to my husband. I was right: we were in love with the same woman.

And Hermione Granger was our Sister-In-Law.

We decided to keep up appearances.

We have three children. This is enough to prove that we are "married" to the society we are forced to live among.

I ignore my husband's philandering because I owe Harry Potter a life debt.

I also know that at least one of us is happy with the woman we love. Happy with Hermione.

Hermione's transmutation ensures their red hair. Ron doesn't know the children aren't his.

Mother has discovered the truth on several occasions. I've been forced to learn Memory Charms in order to keep up appearances.

Hermione will never know that I love her.

I sometimes still pretend that I gave her the Weasley at the end of her name.

* * *

I am twenty-six years old. I have red hair, pale skin and three children. We look good in pictures. Only family and very close friends call me Ginny anymore; most people don't even know my name. I am only Harry Potter's wife.

I am alone in a crowd.

I have to keep up appearances.


End file.
